Legislative bodies are
supreme, is just a myth or reality
Manohar Manoj
Our governing system and public domain both have dual
character, also have dual face too. We keep saying that in democracy,
legislature is supreme, above the executive, Judiciary and definitely above the
unofficial fourth pillar, Mass Media. But,
actually what is there? I do say, ''no way''. It is only in principle, not in
actuality. How can we term Legislature, a supreme organ of democracy, until
unless it has whole year session or sitting. Let us talk about parliament. It
has in all 3 sittings in a year time, adding around 4 months sitting in a year.
Out of this, you spare 45 days in holidays, weekends, adjournment and mourning.
In the rest period, legislative houses keep facing s boycott, staging dharna
and etc. On an average, we have 70 to 80 sittings in a year. In these sittings
we do not have full house, on an average 60 percent members of parliament found
to be absent in the running session. As we know, legislative houses under
democratic set up of governance are assigned and authorized to do many work. They
have various kind of business to do. They have to debate over many ensuing
issues of the country, it has to make deliberations over some particular bills;
members have to ask many public interest questions, it has to pass the bills and
it has to act as recipient of various reports presented by many constitutional
and statutory organizations of the country. It acts as a forum for all the
members of parliament to present their specific problems faced by the public of
their respective constituencies. In this context, how can we say legislature is
supreme body in any democratic set up, which has so less time to deliver its
work and exhibit its authority?
We are a three-tier democracy. Situations are even worse in
the state legislative houses; there we do not see even a month time sitting in a
year time. Chief Ministers do not take interest in facing legislative houses.
Talking about third tier, even formalities are not being made there. First and second
tier executives use their legislatures only in a formality, because they have
to present new bill and enact laws and sometimes they have to replace their
ordinances into new bill etc. So, the reality is that all shots being played by
the executive whether at the first tier or second tier or third tier.
When we go the third tier, there is no even formality of
using legislature there. Villages head almost never convene meeting of
gramsabha and district council hardly come in the news for their sittings.
So if we really want to make our democracy meaningful and to
keep legislature above all; first and foremost thing which we have to ensure, that is at least 4
months/ 100 days mandatory sittings in a year time for the legislative belong
to all three tier. It is attention able here second and third tier legislative
have more pathetic records in this regard. In making our democracy more
relevant, it is very necessary to address most of the public/ governance problems on the floor
of all three tier legislative houses.
Second method is empowering all parliamentary/legislative committees to
interact with the civil society, mass
media, academics, research organizations and experts in order to finalize any
bills or amending any bills. To my mind, the third option may be making members
of parliament/ legislative houses/
councils more accountable and responsible in district/ local administration .
MP must be meaningfully involved in the district administration and MLAs in
Tehsil-Subdivision/ Block administration. It will reduce the ill affect of
bureaucracy as well as making democrat more accountable and responsible in
their respective constituencies. Last , but not the least the supremacy of
legislative bodies lot much depend over the capability and quality of the
elected members. We have not kept any eligibility criteria for the contesting
candidates whether for the parliament election or state legislative election or
for the local body elections. In the name of common men’s democracy we allowed
even uneducated people to contest, but we forget this point that democracy is
not for representation only rather quality representation that is being
articulated by wisdom, if not a very high academic education, but it certainly
requires public leadership quality which contains good education, conscious
thinking, broader horizon of
thinking, awareness regarding
masses’ problems, good understanding of public governance and etc. In absence
of these qualities it is sorry to say, we have such a poor state of legislative
bodies in our democracy , which are being used as an organ in just a formality.
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